The Day of the Jackal (1973)

Plot summary

★★★★★

Directed by: Fred Zinnemann

Starring: Alan Badel, Edward Fox, Michel Auclair, Terence Alexander

Genres: Drama, Thriller

After French President De Gaulle decides to grant independece for Algeria, disappointed generals decide to hire an assasin to kill him. They choose the Jackal, a most professional killer.

The only problem is that the generals are watched, and the plot is found out. The French Police appoints their best detective, Claude Lebel to track down the assasin, of who they only know his codemane, 'The Jackal'.

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Quotes

Lebel: It's obvious that the Jackal has been tipped off all along, and yet he's decided to go ahead, regardless. He's simply challenged the whole lot of us.
Minister: Are you really suggesting that there's a leak from inside this room?
Lebel: I can't say. But we think that the Jackal is now in Paris with a new name and a new face, probably masquerading as a Danish schoolteacher.

Mistakes

An important plot point (in the book and the film) is that Charles Calthrop - thought to be the Jackal, at that stage - played some mysterious part in the 1961 assassination of Rafael Trujillo, the dictator of The Dominican Republic, and rumours of his involvement came to the attention of MI6 and Special Branch, leading to the accidental exposure of the Jackal's false passport. In fact there is no mystery at all about the assassination of Trujillo and there were no shadowy foreigners involved. It was organised by Trujillo's own senior aides, amongst them General Juan Tomás Díaz, Antonio de la Maza, Amado Garcia Guerroro and General Antonio Imbert Barrera. The gunmen was later identified as Luis Aniama Tio. All the conspirators except Tio were arrested, tortured and shot. There was no panicked evacuation of foreigners who were involved with Trujillo's regime and no reason for them to be concerned - the government did not fall and Trujillo's brother Hector took over as President, ruling in a brutal and totalitarian manner for a further eight years. Any rumours of a mysterious Englishman would have been dismissed out of hand and would not have made it onto even the lowest level filing system anywhere in Whitehall.

Pictures

Trivia

Fred Zinnemann wanted the Jackal to be played by an anonymous actor, so he passed over established stars such as Michael Caine, Roger Moore, and Jack Nicholson in favor of Edward Fox. He later admitted that his decision might have been what contributed to the film's sub-par performance at the box office.

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